LEGAL REGULATION OF THE ACTIVITIES OF ENTERPRISES THAT WERE PART OF FINANCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL GROUPS IN JAPAN DURING THE SECOND WORLD WAR: HISTORICAL AND LEGAL ANALYSIS

The article discusses the main mechanisms of legal regulation of the activities of Japanese financial and industrial groups — zaibatsu — during the Second World War to ensure the production of goods, work and services within the framework of the state military order and to increase the defense capability of Japan in the period 1939–1945. Not only special wartime acts are analyzed, in particular, regulatory legal acts on the national mobilization of capital, production and labor, but also general regulatory legal acts, as well as the main directions for reforming the legislation on the ownership and management of enterprises belonging to financial and industrial groups during the Second World War, prerequisites, conditions and consequences of the implemented reforms. As a result, the author draws conclusions regarding the role of various mechanisms of legal regulation of the activities of enterprises which are part of financial and industrial groups for the production of goods, work and services within the framework of the state military order, the level of effectiveness of these mechanisms in the process of ensuring the defense capability of Japan during the Second World War, as well as the reasons and the conditions that contributed to the decrease in the level of effectiveness of the measures implemented within the framework of these legal mechanisms.